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Helsinki Court of Appeal
Radanrakentajantie 5
00521 Helsinki
Honorable Helsinki Court of Appeal!
In his blog (3.6.2008) Jussi Halla-aho, a member of the Helsinki city council, criticized the
incoherent interpretation of the law concerning defamation of religion. He also criticized the actions
of the state prosecutor, Mika Illmann, who specializes in the legislation of freedom of speech. Jussi
Halla-aho said: “The Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile and Islam sanctifies pedophilia as a
religion. Islam is a religion of pedophilia. Pedophilia is Allah’s will.” Halla-aho was subsequently
charged with defamation of religion. The judge of the Helsinki district court, Jussi Sippola, ruled
that Halla-aho acted with the intention to blaspheme and imposed a fine on him.
Islam allows child marriages and thus child molestation
Islam’s holy texts tell how the fifty-three-year-old prophet Muhammad “consummated the marriage”
- in other words, had sexual intercourse - with his bride Aisha when she was nine years old and still
played with dolls (Bukhari 7:62;88, Bukhari 7:62:64, Bukhari 7:62:65, Muslim 8:3310).1 The
researcher of Islam, Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, writes in his handbook of Islam (Islamin käsikirja,
Otava, 2004, p.37, which received a meritorious award by the Finnish state): “The prophet had
never in his life acted solely according to the prevailing situation but at the same time he had
looked out for the future. The details of the prophet’s life were meant to be eternally imitated by the
Islamic community.” In addition Hämeen-Anttila emphasizes that the prophet Muhammad was
“insured against faults (ma sum), so in his behavior he did nothing wrong, nor ́ anything that would
not have been God’s (Allah’s) intention.” (Islam – taskusanakirja, Basam Books, 2001, p.28). Allah
proclaims in the Quran: “Certainly you have in the Messenger of Allah an excellent example”
(33:21).
According to present-day standards Muhammad was a pedophile in the neutral and medical sense
of the word (see Duodecim: http://www.terveyskirjasto.fi/). The tradition of Muhammad’s exemplary
way of living, also known as sunna, serves as one of the central sources for Islamic law; sharia.
Hämeen-Anttila (2001, p.26) states: “Because the sharia is a religious, holy law, it can not be
changed by people’s decision.” Furthermore, Hämeen-Anttila (2001, p.28) stresses: “The Sunna is
a conclusive example to the Muslims, and it is the responsibility of every devout Muslim to obey the
example of Muhammad”. Islamic law does not legislate a minimum age for matrimony. Hence it is
obvious that Islam truly sanctifies child molestation, so far as it happens inside matrimony or in its
shadow. According to the written pleading of the Helsinki district court, this should not be
concluded, because within religions “truth is relative” and “due to this, logic or rational reasoning do
not have true sense in discussion about religious matters.” If the district court’s pronounced
sentence on Halla-aho is to be the final judgment, it implies that criticizing Islam is illegal, even
when it is based on obvious facts which Muslims themselves hold to be true.
Because the prophet Muhammad’s exemplary
way of living “was meant to be eternally imitated
by the Islamic community”, the molestation of
baby girls sanctified by Allah is in many Muslim
countries nowadays a common phenomenon and
an institution that human and women’s rights
activists such as Ghada Jamshir have criticized in
the Arab media (http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=2t3vfDhPTlk, 1:54-2:45, Al-Arabiya TV, Dubai/
Saudi-Arabia, 21.12.2005).

1 The information about the sunnas originates from the so-called hadith, which function as one of the sources of law of the sharia.
The essential collections of hadith is found here: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/